I'll be purchasing it, 3D fighters are what I can understand/get into the most and I've never tried VF before. Plus the price is too good to ignore. Hopefully the FGC in general supports the game, as was done with Skullgirls. Are there any recommendations you VF veterans could give for starting characters? I've been interested in playing Vanessa/Eileen, but I have a track record of being attracted to characters who are too complex for my own good >_<
while the whole roster can get incredibly deep, I would like to guess that many of the more 'beginner-friendly' characters include the following: Jean, Jacky, Sarah, Eileen, Jeffry, Pai. Kage and Aoi aren't that complicated IMO either. I'm pretty sure many other people will have opinions different from mine, and maybe for good reason.
I say 'beginner-friendly' because they are characters with relatively straightforward styles and easy movelists where you can focus on learning the VF system without getting too bogged down with character-specific stuff
Your choice for Eileen is a very good one. She's a poke/string-heavy oriented character with alot of safe moves and frame traps. IMO, she's very Leixia-ish. Low average damage output, but its difficult to punish her. Her style and gameplay is very easy to learn, and none of her moves are all that difficult to do.
Now Vanessa, she's probably one of the most complicated characters in VF history. She is literally 2 characters in one between both of her stances, and I heard that she has like 300+ moves, which is at least double of the average. If you really want to play with her, I don't think it's a bad choice (as long as you only stick to one moveset while learning her at first), but she might not be the best character to learn the VF system with, which is quite different from every other fighting game, 2d or 3d