Cute-'em-up
noun, slang ·Uncommon ·College level
Definitions
- 1 A shoot 'em up game with a cute, cartoonish aesthetic. slang
"It's a parody of Gradius (geddit?) and as such, is a fully-fledged “cute 'em up.” The hectic sideways-scrolling action is every bit as intense as its namesake, but instead of battling spaceships and futuristic hardware you have sunny levels filled with cartoon penguins, giant clowns, flying pigs and all manner of bizarre things."
Example
More examples"It's a parody of Gradius (geddit?) and as such, is a fully-fledged “cute 'em up.” The hectic sideways-scrolling action is every bit as intense as its namesake, but instead of battling spaceships and futuristic hardware you have sunny levels filled with cartoon penguins, giant clowns, flying pigs and all manner of bizarre things."
Etymology
Blend of cute + shoot 'em up.
More for "cute-'em-up"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.