It was super detailed and incredibly anal in regards to simulating a small town. The first game is boring as fuck though, it's basically the story of you getting on a boat.
Mue 2 is the far better game, as shit really picks up, there are more fights, better characters, and they get rid of a lot of the bullshit that plagued the first game (mainly standing around waiting for shit to happen). Mue 1 was an interesting experiment that some people liked and Mue 2 was more like Sleeping Dogs or something.