>>22279861
>>22279832
Personally, I think the Naruto universe has a lot of potential. I loved the first 30~40 volumes of the manga, back before the show started shitting on the fan-base. However, I came to terms with the same thing you two are complaining about. The story has power-creep built into the setting.
All you would need to do is require characters to assume a fair level of specialization, if not in one particular field then just one or two. Set it up so that the more ground they try to cover, the lower their power level in each area is. I know it seems like some 101 shit, but just by D&D I can assure you that obvious answers go regularly ignored in game design.
Anyway. Have them need to focus on their specialization, and then build it on a system that requires you to roll skills/abilities for all of your actions. Then you could have them roll for all jutsu and what not, rather than it just being like in D&D where the wizard says, "I'm going to petrify you,'' and then it is (unless it rolls something crazy, like 19+).
Anyway, you get what I'm saying.
If you made it more like early-on Naruto, where ninja were like some spec-ops militia I think it would be very cool.