Well, after letting the whole Berwyn Expansion marinate, I have to say that I am not really happy with how this all played out. This will be long so if anyone is interested in TL;dr:
The entire expansion feels like it was created for people that either did not like/care or were indeferent to the doggy summoner while offering almost no benefits or anything close to towards his original fanbase.
For longer version:
First I am going to say something towards the quest itself. I overall enjoyed it. I liked reading through it, it made Berwyns struggle all that more compelling and as a conclusion to his arc, it did its job. But the whole gender/sex change thing? Yeah...
Look, like with everything, I am sure that there are some prior fans of the dog boy that like the stuff that is currently at offer. Maybe some of them liked his overall appearance but wished his dick was reasonably sized (at least by CoC2 standards). Perhaps they wanted the ability to trully dominate the dog boy. Or maybe they are like me and have niche interest in Cboys/maleherms. I am not claiming that if you are a Berwyn fan that you should hate, or even particularly dislike, what this update has to offer.
As for my opinion on current avalide stuff: it does seem to suffer from two fronts - the aforementioned sudden malleability of Berwyn and having Matiha involved. Lets take sex scenes for example: while good, they do feel somewhat bland and repetitive in their execution. I gather that the cause for that is having to account for body changes, Berwyns dom/sub meter and Matiha herself. It just does not have the tightness of his original writing where it only needed to focus on fulfilling the dream of having a bratty dog dominate you every which way. Even when comparing it to someone like Ryn, it does feel messy and unfulfilling in places.
And then there is Matiha. While I somewhat can live with Berry and his TFs --since the content that is written for female/futa berry should supposedly trickle down to his OG self -- the big titty witch is another ballpark. Sure, you can technically remove her from the game/move her to wayfort and have the doggy half-breed all to yourself. That was the first thing I did. But man, does it feel like the game is pushing her onto you. Ignoring the aforementioned sex scenes, Berry feels pretty bare bones alone. While I do enjoy the quick glimpses into his every day life each time you enter his den, the amount of stuff he has to say and do feels barren compared to everything he had before. I wish we had ability to talk to him about his feelings when it comes to Matiha, his relationship with us (besides his dom/sub conclusions which are actual conclusions) and the state of his libido. Just something, to make him feel more complete.
And while on topic of Matiha and her involvement... You can argue that Matiha is as much as part of this update as Berwyn and that obviously sending her off somewhere far away where she can not touch him should lead to less stuff. While somewhat logical, my counter arguments are:
Not everyone is into the big titty witch. Be it that they find her actions inexcusable, her design unappealing or just having no interest in, she should have been a side piece more than anything. For when I hear the phrase "Berwyn update", I expect more Berry. And right now, the desperincy in content between Berry with Matiha and Berry without Matiha is to large for my liking.
And finally, on this whole removal of him as companion.
I find it bad on principle that Berwyn fans do seem to get short end of the stick in the update. All my aforementioned pros seem more like a byproduct of the expansion, not their main, intended, result. It feels like that most of the changes were created with wider audience in mind. Look, I understand that female NPCs are more in demand than their male counterparts. I get that. I understand that players want subby girls that worship the ground they walk and have no interest in dominant pretty boys/femboys/guys. But I and many other enjoyed it. And to suddenly be forced to share a table with the part of the fan base that already gets stuffed with oodles of content... Yeah, I hope you understand why a lot of people are muffled.
If the expansion was just conclusion to Berry storyline and some additions to his already established niche as dominant femboy, then I would e somewhat miffled but happy. Since I understand that supporting a companion is a lot of work.
But right now, I am disappointed.
