Rogue Signal Unicorn

Agreed, needs a tutorial or a better start sequence to teach you the beat. In the meantime: See that signal bar that has you health in it? It pulses every time the soundtack hits a beat, after that you have a small window to do any action. So as long you sync your inputs with that beat pulse you should be ok, the line and dots aren't that important except for points where the beat cuts out. Some more tips: 

- Doing no action on a beat causes less damage than missing a beat. Often its better to just let a few beats pass in order to get into the groove again.

- After chaining 6 successful actions you'll start gaining health back each time you chain another 4 action (increased bonus after very long combos). The first couple successful block against Attack Barriers also heal you. Missing a beat, doing no action after a beat or getting hit by Attack Barriers will kill your combo.

- You can defend or attack in place in order to keep your current combo, but only moving forward, striking enemies and successful blocks will increase it.

- Attack Barriers will strike one the next beat after targeting you. Your default "defend" firewall only lasts for two beats, so you either have  to defend during the beat your are targeted on or the next one in order to successfully block. Your firewall can last longer with certain power ups. Attack Barriers will only start targeting you when jumping to the node in front of them.

- Your attack will only strike at the next node, but power ups can increase the damage you deal per strike. 

- Running into Firwalls/Attack barriers will always do a lot of damage. You'll always want to bash them down before moving.