Hm, possibly Ultima 6? Worlds of Ultima: The Savage Empire because of the palm fronds? There's lots of stuff to pick up in those games that has little to no use.
Not Ultima. The game was visually much darker, I don't think you had a party, and screenshots of that game don't appear to really be isometric. Thanks, though.
Hm, I can suggest a few others though I'm pretty sure they won't be what you're looking for.
"Albion": Has a lot of things to pick up, though it's not isometric, has a party system and I think you'd remember that for the scifi beginning and jungle theme later.
"Divine Divinity": Again has a lot of stuff to pick up, isometric and no party system but I don't think it's the one because it came out in 2002. You're also not imprisoned in the beginning, though you are restricted to the village until an early dungeon is completed.
"Magic and Mayhem": I'm looking at lists of games from 95 to 2000 and this could be likely.
That's about it, going through release lists on Wikipedia which I wouldn't think are comprehensive.
Also: This is something I asked about a while back. I'll mention it again on the off chance someone knows the game I'm talking about.
It was a 3D game with pre-rendered backgrounds. I remember the game was likely set in Japan or China, probably in the past.
The one scene I remember from it was this; your... party I think had fought with another group on the grounds of a temple/mansion made of wood, or at least a house. After the battle you were given exposition from one of the defeated villains, after which your character(s) left, cut to the villain lying on the ground puking up some mind control worms or some such. I'm pretty sure the scene was at night, or at least was dark.
I think I saw it around 2000 or before. The graphics were like Silent Hill 1, that blocky, early type of character modelling. I saw the game on the computer, but since the theme seems to be rather more JRPG then WRPG I'm wondering whether it was an emulated game. I'm pretty sure it was a horror game.