I don't really know. I just pick characters who look good and then learn them. My Helena (who is my main) playstyle consists of resets (both in throws and force techs). Simply because this works the best for me and I think this character is really good at it.
When I play a character like...
DOA 5 was my first DOA and I got Dimensions a little bit later. Dimensions explains the story pretty well in my opinion. Just don't put the voices on English because Helena sounds hella weird.
Congrats on winning, man. I know both of you have a chance of winning in Tokyo. Also, tell Xcal he better use Helena otherwise I want my votes back, lol.
I don't find the sound in DOA very interesting in general, so I like to blast some music and have DOA's sounds in the background.
But yes, I have no idea what they were thinking when they hired a dog toy instead of a voice actor for Honoka.
Just keep playing him for a while. It becomes muscle memory eventually. What I mean is that if you play a character for a while you won't forget stuff anymore.
If we're talking about effort and complexity there's gonna be way too much personal opinion involved (we already have enough of that in a tier list discussion).