I played that game 345134514 years ago on a demo disc.
Its probably an adventure game. The demo featured one scene in which the hero needs to jump from platform to platform in order to reach some ship , think, and if you fail you fall into lave or something and a big demon pirate thingie comes out of the ship and mocks you.
For years I thought this game to be Curse of Monkey Island, until I finished the said game and noticed that that scene was not in it. It looked somewhat similar, IIRC.
Note: That was a long time ago, my memory may or may not betray me.

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...

Not sure, but it sounds like Legend Of Legaia for PS1.

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...

Sounds like Vagrant Story and Zelda had a sweet sweet loving child.

Mr. Domino: Definitely sounds like Legend of Legaia as The Emugator said.

I used to have a demo with a bit from a game. It was like an action RPG, I think. You walked and got into battles live in the enviroment, where you could move about.

The characters didnt have any facial features. The setting may well have been futuristic, despite the presence on swords and axes.

mentioning the system would help a lot!

yeah if it's a playstation game, i was thinking maybe it's the granstream saga

no facial expressions


could be futuristic (its not tho)


you could move in battles

Uh, I could very well comprehend the concept of systems when I was nine...  Maybe I'm just a freak but I doubt it.

Not everyone lives in an area where consoles were popular back then.
When I was a kid all I knew was that there's a Megadrive (lol, Genesis) and that NES clone.

We called it a Megason around here. Its part of this shit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famiclone