Shinjitsu no Sekai means real world in Japanese - and indeed, the game is set in modern-day Tokyo. The protagonist is an ordinary (at least in the beginning) girl named Marica, who lives together with her parents and her little sister. One day a dog steals a piece of meat she bought in a store. Following the dog, Marica encounters a strange, scary-looking man, who turns out to be a former terrorist on the run from his even scarier comrades, who are involved in supernatural activities. Marica becomes the sole owner of information that is vitally important to the terrorist organization, and has to protect her life with her newly discovered paranormal skills.
Despite the unusual (for an RPG) setting, the gameplay system of Marica is similar to other Japanese RPGs. There are no random enemies, but initiating contact with a hostile character on screen leads to a turn-based battle, viewed from first-person perspective. Marica and the two other girls who join the party later in the game can attack with equipped weapons or execute their special moves. Those attacks are displayed as anime-style still shots. The story is advanced mostly through extensive dialogue (no subtitles) between characters, with large anime-style portraits super-imposed on the background.
