I get what you're saying, and maybe that's the reason why I wasn't that excited about her inclusion initially is because the stuff that really makes her exciting is her conversations, not her fighting, but I still think she's a missed opportunity in this game. Losing Ali Hillis might really have gone a long way, because I swear something about her VA in this game nearly makes me cringe. Even if it's just mainly yells and a few words, I feel like those few sound bits are so important in subtlety capturing a character in fighting games, especially when a character is first being defined in them, and Palutena in this game completely misses the mark on that.
As far as her animations go, I only played her once in classic and have just observed her a few times as an opponent, but while not they're not awful, I still feel like they missed the mark. Her smash attacks are great, but everything else is pretty meh. Her feet should be projecting light when she kicks. Her up air should shine a beam of light above it. Her forward tilt should look like a a true whirlwind of power. She had so much potential to look like an amazing goddess, but instead she just flips her staff around a lot.
I'll have to play her again and observe the animations more closely, but overall she just seems much more uninspired than she could've been.
Palutena could probably have been implemented better, sure. That said, I actually liked the whole thematic principle behind most of Palutena's attack animations, and I think making all of her attacks super-flashy would have gotten in the way of it. Say what you want about her playstyle, but I noticed a pretty clear and unified vision in how Palutena attacks and moves in the game - most of her tilts, all twirly as they are, sorta feel like she's not throwing them out very seriously; kind of a casual godly backhand since she doesn't have to expend the effort to fight you seriously. When she unleashes a portent of her divine abilities (and when shit gets real, see: her Smash attacks) the sigil appears behind her and a suitably impressive looking attack comes out because she's done playing around. Having every attack look like this vortex of divine punishment sort of takes away from the 'oh shit just got real' factor of her grander smash attacks.
...of course, I wouldn't mind not having to deal with all the normals involving twirling her staff if it meant less laggy attacks. :lol
I feel like the VA thing is straight up a little less important for me. Not that I don't adore KIU's voice acting (and count myself as a general enthusiast in that realm), but Palutena in the game is really only calling out her powers with an occasional unique victory quote against Kid Icarus characters. Since there's nothing substantial, like a codec or something that would make me feel bad about Hillis not voicing Palutena or anything, there's really nothing that I have against the voice performance. I suppose that's part of your general issue, but I can live with it more or less. In any case, I think I found Brandy Kopp to do a decent enough job filling in, even if Ali Hillis would have been ideal.
Unrelatedly relatedly, I'm having way too much fun with the Palutena vs Little Mac match-up with her custom moves set up. I baited my friend's Mac into trying to counter me on the Jump Glide approach (since he was assuming I'd throw out a bair) and just crossed him up and threw him off-stage and into a charged Up-Smash when he tried coming back. :lol
I definitely feel you about the USmash. In theory, it's an excellent anti-air tool, but the fact that the beam of light is so narrow means it's all-too easy for opponents to air dodge through even though I'm ostensibly nailing them. :/
And I'm still skeptical about the FSmash--not to say I don't believe you, of course! Perhaps I just haven't adjusted to the spacing yet, but I seem to have a hard time landing it.
Fsmash is pretty situational in general. I use it to punish landing lag on aerials/endlag on Smash attacks (especially near the edge) or whiffed Counters and the like, since it's pretty easy to react to in most other situations. I wouldn't fuss
too much about the spacing, otherwise. Kind of those things you eventually get a decent enough feel over.
...jeez, I've played so much Palutena today that I'm convinced that my Robin play has fallen apart again. Gonna be sticking my Levin Sword out expecting a beam of light to appear. I still can't believe that I was better at Robin late into day one than I am now. :lol