Ok, here's one that should be relatively easy (should). I know it was for either PS1 or N64, because of the graphics, but I seem to remember an N64 controller being in my hand at the time. I played it only once at a Best Buy a looooonnngg time ago, but it was the very first RPG I ever played, and was as such my first step down a long and nerdy road to where I'm at now.

It started out with traditional RPG fare, you're a young guy living in some hackneyed village, and you're woken up by someone telling you that there's monsters attacking this special tree in the center of the village (Mana tree? Gaia tree?). But then what got me hooked was the battle system outside. It was a combo-based turn-based fighting system...weird concept, yes I know, but it was awesome. You picked from different moves or swipes with your weapon (like uppercuts, left slashes, right slashes, downward swipes, etc.) and made a combo of four moves with them, and then it would show you going at it with your enemy and depending on what attacks they made certain attacks you made would be critical and vice versa, where you or the enemy left parts exposed or off-balance. It was kind of like four games of rock paper scissors at once... After the guy got to the tree thing, he fought a boss, but I think (if I remember correctly) was unable to save the tree, and so then the townspeople sent out a boat (perhaps with the hero on it?) out to see with the last seeds of the tree thing...

Anyways hopefully someone can help me out, because I've looked for years to no avail...

But Legend of Mana was Ps1....anyways, yeah....just a day earlier and I could have gotten the whole Terranigma thing...although I still personally say Illusion of Gaia was better...