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."

I stopped here.

Isn't the reason why it stops using the gamepad was only in TV mode in order to save the battery on the gamepad? I believe you can still see it on the gamepad when you go off-tv mode... I think its smart cause when you are playing it on the TV, you are not exactly looking at your gamepad most of the time so if it can squeeze out more battery life which will lead to a longer game, I think its a good thing...

"Like many Wii U games, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze supports off-TV play. But if you happen to be playing regularly – on TV that is – the controller will go dark. Retro implemented the functionality in order to “save battery.”

http://nintendoeverything.com/donkey-kong-country-tropical-freeze-makes-the-gamepad-go-dark-while-playing-on-tv/

It is definitely not cause its a graphically intensive game, It looks nice, sure, but Mario 3d World looks more better from both technical and artistic standpoint imo... I still don't get why people think its a hardware issue... They even said they turned it off to save the battery... If they are not gonna use it, then they may as well get extend each game session in order to save the battery

Yikes, basic Wikipedia fact searching eludes journalists these days.

Whats a Gamepad? =P
Seriously Nintendo refuse to sell the system without it but they refuse to use it =(
Maybe one day they will make a game that makes the Gamepad worthwhile

Maybe his keyboard was too dirty?

Nintendo stated in their investor meeting that they haven't done as good of a job as they want at making the gamepad seem useful and will do a better job at this going forward...obviously its too late for games that are releasing soon (DKC and MK) but we will start seeing more games using it in the future, such as the heavily hinted NFC game that will likely be announced at E3

so no gamepad-less SKU any time soon

You can if your playing in Off-TV mode

if the game does not need it then it should not have it end of story

To those saying off tv mode, yes but that isn't really being creative with it nor is it necessary. They could have easily added things like NSMBU did with the mushroom icons and it would have no costed anything to develop something like that, yet they didn't do that. My question is why wouldn't they just put something simple like that in? It doesn't make sense to me unless they are seriously interested in how a game will do that doesn't utilize the gamepad practically at all.