The below article got me thinking more about this. This is a first party game, with plenty of funding and development time, and in no way so graphically intense that it restrains itself from connecting to the gamepad in a more intensive way and yet we don't have have a single thing on the gamepad. Is this Nintendo's test pilot for seeing how well massive first party games can do without a unique gamepad innovation and if so could this be paving the way to a real wii u sku without a gamepad eventually if tropical Freeze sells well?
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/02/08/does-the-latest-donkey-kong-suggest-that-nintendo.aspx
"Donkey Kong hates the GamePad
Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze is the follow up to 2011's highly successful Donkey Kong Country: Returns and is a title that has been touted by Nintendo as a major release for its Wii U console. As one of very few titles currently slated to hit the console in 2014, Nintendo is correct in this assertion. That said, the game is going to underperform its predecessor in a big way. Wii U's installed base is too small and sales momentum too sluggish to believe that the latest adventures of Donkey Kong and company will thrive on the market. It is possible that the title portends broader changes for the console, however.
In promoting the Wii U, Nintendo executives and PR handlers put a great deal of focus on the GamePad. Considering the success that the Wii's motion controls saw back in 2006 and reports that Wii U's chipset makes the system about as powerful as 2005's Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT ) Xbox 360, that strategy is hardly surprising. What is surprising is just how poor of a job Nintendo has done in coming up with software that justifies the device. In its current state, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze ignores many of the GamePad's features."
