This Retro tweet from 2 years ago is quite intresting :)

https://twitter.com/RetroStudios/status/733476561265954816/photo/1

This could end up being very good, I have faith in Retro.

WWHD visuals are gorgeous, the main reason why I bought a Wii U 

Yeah Nano Assault was one of my first Wii U games, used to play it heaps when I just had 15 minutes to kill. 

It's not that I'm saying Tropical Freeze is ugly, just that apart from the nifty fur effect and its flawless 60fps performance profile, it's nothing special graphically. Lighting is flat and static, effects and shaders are basic, and textures and geometry are average. Even for a Wii U game, it's not pushing any technical boundaries.

I think that Tropical Freeze is looking good but its not among best looking Wii U games, for instance Yoshi Wooly World that's also 2D platformer IMO is looking better and its one of best looking Wii U games.

Tropical Freeze and DKCR are easily some of the most visually accomplished titles on their respective platforms.
At the same time it's quite clear their focus with DK games was to push a huge a amount of high qualty 3d assets at steady 60fps rather than pouring (very limited) hardware resources on fancy shaders and lighting effects.
Comparisons with games like Mario Galaxy or 3D World are not on point, since it would clearly be impossible to run on Wii/WiiU the kind of graphical features those games support with the complex and detailed enviroments DK offers.

Tropical Freeze's environments are hardly "detailed" or "complex" even by Wii U standards; geometry and textures aren't anything special, certainly nothing that justifies its lacklustre lighting, shaders, and effects.

I honeslty can't think of any WiiU game that has the same amount 3d content and assets displayed in a level while running at costant 60fps, besides Mario Kart 8 and Smash Bros.

Also keep in mind that even if you don't see everything displayed at once due to the 2.5D perspective the game has to buffer a lot of content in order to prevent loading screens and slowdowns and DKTF levels are very large.

Off the top of my head, Nano Assault Neo pushes better visuals at 60fps; the levels are smaller but as a sidescroller only a tiny portion of a level is ever on screen at once in TF. In terms of detail TF is just fine; it's not breaking any records but it's certainly not deficient. Where it falls short is how simplistic its lighting and effects are. Most high profile Wii U games far eclipse it in this regard.

When WWHD came out I didnt regret getting a Wii U anymore.