Edit: I've now completed the game on the "normal" difficulty, and close to beating it on Difficulty +3
My old "first impressions" review can be read at the bottom

Women of god become extremely horny over drinking holy water.
Taboo Trial is a short 3D action roguelike that you can complete (your first full run) in about 4 hours. I personally really liked the shorter length of the game, because it means each run you'll most likely be able to beat the boss that killed you last time.The English translation of the game is a bit rough in many places, but generally I had no trouble understanding what it was trying to say. The story is very basic at it's core, and anything beyond "kill the boss to open the way to the next area" is ultimately quite forgettable.

The steam page mentions "partial controller support", which basically boils down to: combat works perfectly fine, menus can be a bit stubborn to use, you can't rebind keys (you can rebind on keyboard, just not controller)

Bosses
There are 8 bossfights in the game, but in reality it's 4 bosses with either different movesets or "boss you've seen previously, but now there's two of them" type situations. They aren't the flashiest fight on the market, nor the most memorable, but the movesets are decent enough fun (although some hitboxes could use adjustments)

Spells/abilities
If my memory serves me right there are 5 or 6 "spell" type abilities in the game, most of them have a "ability" version (a button/key that you have to press to activate) and a "passive" version (smaller version of the same effect, has a chance to trigger through another action/ability)Most of them are decently strong, and if you get good upgrades with them you'll be able to melt bosses in the matter of seconds.

Weapons
There are only three in the game: greatsword, greataxe, and a spear. The latter two need to be unlocked with items that drop from first-time boss kills. They all play about the same in the beginning, they all have a light 3-attack chain and a heavy attack that costs energy. You can upgrade the light attack or completely change what the heavy attack does if you find the specific upgrade for them.

Playable Characters:
There are 7 playable "characters" in the game (the difference between them is only cosmetic, they all use the same weapons and upgrades), and you unlock them by giving them a specific boss drop item (Holy Water) three times. You can only gift one item between runs, even if you have more than one in your inventory, which seems like a bit of an odd restriction.Now, you as the player don't know these characters personally, but the moment you gift them holy water they're pretty much down to ♥♥♥♥ on the spot, like full 0 to 100 on the horny scale within seconds. There isn't actual sex or nudity in the game, but the dialogue (and character illustrations that you get after the first gift) can be very very suggestive.

Difficulty+ (New Game+)
After you beat the game once you'll unlock Difficulty+ options (up to +3 to begin with) that as far as I know go up to at least +10. +3 is a small but noticeable difficulty increase from your first playthrough, you also need to add an extra modifier to your run, which adds either extra health and damage to enemies or environmental hazards that you need to be aware of. The higher the difficulty, the more modifiers you need to pick. You also get extra money and "heart of spirit" (used for permanent upgrades) on higher difficulties.

Visuals
The game takes norse mythology/aesthetics and sprinkles some shiny futurism and technology on top of it. If you're looking for a faithful retelling/use of norse mythology, this game isn't it. The game takes names of people, creatures and places from nordic myth but doesn't really connect them back to it in any meaningful way. Either way, I really like the environments of the game, especially the snowy areas in Chapter 2. Whoever in the team is behind the visuals of this game gets a thumbs up from me!

Missing Content...?
Few of the loading screens show more organic-looking enemies, specifically some type of dragon and another giant lizard creature. They don't actually appear in the game, which is a shame. (unless they're some kind of secret Difficulty+10 endgame bosses but I kinda doubt that). I hope that they're some kind of content planned for the future, because they both look really cool and I want to fight them :(

Performance
I have a RTX3060 and putting all the graphics settings to the highest drops the fps to around 20-30. The main culprit seems to be the Fog setting, changing it from High to Normal made the game run perfectly fine.A fair few people have also reported issues with lag and crashes, and there seems to currently be problems with certain AMD and NVIDIA graphics cards, I personally didn't encounter any of the former (besides the fog lag), but I'll still mention it here to make people aware that there is a possibility of performance-related problems!

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OLD REVIEW

This is a "first impressions" review about an hour into the game, since there aren't many reviews in english and I imagine people will be curious to know more than what the steam page tells them

Believe it or not I didn't come her for the anime waifu ass, as much as it seems to be center of advertisement. The character you start with did kind of gave me Nier Automata vibes, maybe it's the white hair and the anime waifu ass.
But what actually caught my attention and dragged me in was the mix of norse-inspired aesthetics and funky robot creatures, I had the money to spare so I gave it a shot. And... it's actually pretty decent!

I'm gonna be real, I was half-expecting this game to be a scam or something, I tried to look up info about the game and dev online before buying but found absolutely nothing (except a link to the official discord that had less than 10 members).

On first launch my antivirus gave a warning pop-up, which it eventually cleared after scanning the files. It's not a great start to launching a game, but I wasn't about to let that stop me.
Once you press start the game immediately drops you to the first level and gives a brief combat tutorial. The best I can describe the gameplay loop is that it's Hades, almost identically, you move from room to room and pick rewards as you go, and bosses drop items that you can trade in for other stuff and permanent upgrades in the hub room.

Combat feels alright, reading enemy attacks and dodging in time can be a bit of a pain but I imagine it's one of those things that you'll get better at as you repeat the bosses over and over again. The skills you can pick on runs seem to have pretty good variety to them. I'm only a handful of runs deep at the point of writing this, and so far I've had a slightly different approach to combat each time, first run my skills were more focused on applying a damage-over-time debuff to enemies, and another time I was slapping enemies around with heavy attacks. Based on trailer footage there are plenty of abilities that I haven't even come across yet.

TLDR: The game feels good to play for the most part and I really like the aesthetic they've gone with, I don't have any major complaints so far but we'll see if that changes as I get further into the game.

Yeah, this ain't it, chief.....

And it's a shame, because what we're getting here is a shell of a potentially great game, but a shell all the same.

What do I mean by this? Well, it's in the level design, which is easily the most visually pleasing part of the game. Generally with Norse mythology, the aesthetic is either full viking, or far future/alien vibe. Taboo trial has gone for the latter. Looking at the level design actually kind of makes me miss Too Human(despite its MANY flaws). So it's a real same that all these levels have been restricted to small arenas, while the rest of the level stays blocked off by an invisible barrier. Almost feels like there's a better game just beyond your reach.

As far a gameplay goes, it's a very simple roguelite. The closest thing I can compare it to is Hades, if its balance was completely thrown out the window. And there's really not much here. As in, after a few playthroughs, you'll have unlocked everything worth unlocking while being ridiculously overpowered. Story? Not much here, so I might as well spoil it. You rescue Loki from mechanical monsters, you both go to Mimir who's a giant robot tree, you drink some elixir to learn the truth, but then pass out and forget everything, locking you in a literal endless feedback loop.

....And speaking of 'unlocks'. Look, I'm a man of culture. I like my anime waifus as much as the next person. But the waifus on selection here? They're mid. Sure, there's plenty of skin showing, but a good waifu is more than her looks. You can unlock other 'Valkyries' by, and I kid you not. Getting them drunk on holy water, and bedding them with some cringey lesbian dialogue. There's no real discernible difference between each Valkyrie. They are literally just a costume. And the worst part? The character portraits don't even have consistent outfits. They used AI. And it sticks out like a sore thumb the moment you realise this.

Honestly? This feels like an alpha test. There are actual early access games out there with far more meat on the bone than this game. I got it on sale, and I still felt robbed.

NO NSFW

apparently leaviong review on "these" kind of games messes with your friends recommendation lists.

I'm gonna be honest, I went into this game for "horny" and ended up finding a good action rogue-lite. Still at the start of the holy water journey though, so who knows.

Obviously haven't played the game very long. But from what iv'e seen, this is my opinion.
Pro:
Ecchi Girls are sweet <3
Con:
Repetitive Fighting
VERY few enemy types that reapeat throughout the stages (the first 4 at least)
Game feels unpolished around the edges.
Gamepad Controls feel wanky, sometimes it won't stop walking when i release L stick
The stages are very Bland and there is nothing to explore
Characters have zero personality

I wanted to like the game. Honestly I didn't even know about the Ecchi content. It looked interesting from the videos.
5 hours into the game and I'm so bored with it. Honestly? I was bored with it around 3 hours in. But I was hoping it would change at the higher difficulties. (spoilers: it doesn't)
Made it to difficulty 90+ and if I wasn't getting one shot, I was one shotting them. Legitimately, there is so much chaos that dodging the guys who spawn in already attacking is stupid.

The game itself is SHALLOW. Within two runs I had everything I could unlock, unlocked. Weapons / Skins / 85-90% of the "rogue like" side was maxed out. That was only a hour into the game.

You could 100% remove the holy water ecchi scenes and it wouldn't affect a damn thing. It's literally only there to tease you and give you short bouts of weirdly awkward scenes between you and the Valkyries just to change our your skin,... which does nothing. Honestly, it does ZERO things. No stat changes and you can barely even see your character half the time so the concept of skins is silly.

Weapons were interesting,... until you tried them. Axe is boring and slow, even with the fast speed upgrades (also feels really weak), gungir is lacking in every way shape and form. Feels slow, short and weak. The default blade is a solid choice, but then you get the katana. I never changed my weapon once I used it. It's speed and damage incarnate. It's silly.

Once you play a single run of the game,... you've played the game. Every aspect is exactly the same in later difficulties short of adding random modifiers to each run. That's shallow as hell.


Now maps were cool looking at first. Then you realize that in most of the maps 90% of what you see, you can't interact with and actually feels more like a burden than the small maps. Huge HUGE maps, with a barrier blocking you from exploring them. Then enemies will spawn on the complete other side of the level making you run for a solid 20-30 seconds just to meet them and either one shot them or otherwise, then they spawn on the OTHER side again. IT IS A HORRIBLE DESIGN CHOICE.

For the price? I can't recommend it. I would maybe pick it up at like $5 - $9max. Because once you play a few rounds, you'll never load it again.

Resetting progress only because you added some new content for everybody seems such stupid move. The game is already tedious and repetitive enough as it is.
Would not recommend this game even for 1$, massive waste of time and chance of losing progress for no reason.

Dev keeps nerfing things not a good look for the future of the game. I have no idea why they keep destroying fun builds in a game with a boring gameplay loop. Its a hades clone with less weapons and content and the fun getting nerfed out every patch. Good luck and refund if you have less than 2 hours.

It was good until they reset everyones preogress just casue they added new content, stupid ♥♥♥♥♥.