I've tried Googleing but just get given countless articles about the lack of touchscreen controls... is it possible to play this exclusively on the gamepad? Hopefully I can play this on the couch without having to fight over the TV!

You can, yes. At any point you can tap on the gamepad's touchscreen to change the display from TV to gamepad. There are no touchscreen controls in the game so that's all the touchscreen is used for.

Yes you can. But I would not recommend doing so for 100% of the time.

Light mechanics spoilers-

Everything else has been fine on the gamepad , when I've tried.

@slag: I haven't checked, but is it possible to change that control method in the options so it isn't an issue?

Yep! It doesn't look great, but you can play it there for sure.

@paulmako: I don't think it is. Afaik anything involving motion controls can't be altered.

You could skip the content itself though, at least where I've seen hasn't been necessary to complete the game (haven't finished the game yet so hard to say). We are talking probably like 3-4% of the game max

I haven't seen a way to bypass the motion control stuff either. Most of the time I use the Pro Controller, but am forced to pick up the gamepad for those specific puzzles.

Otherwise the game is completely playable on the gamepad screen.

I got a question, does the gamepad and TV always display the same thing? Or can you do map on the gamepad and gameplay on the TV? I know they cut touch-screen stuff but maybe dual display stuff stayed?

@forcen: Nope, it's identical. No special map or inventory options for the gamepad.

When you are on TV mode, the only thing on the gamepad is 'press here to switch to gamepad mode' and vice versa.

@forcen: You can only use one screen at a time.

It's either play on gamepad or play on the TV. No map on the gamepad or anything like that

Damn shame too, cuz I think it would have been even better if the Gamepad retained its' original intended second screen functionality

Yea, I really wish they'd shown something on the other screen, rather than push to switch. Even the loading screen, with the stuff that you've collected would have been an improvement.

Because my wife and kid want to watch TV all the time I can safely say I have been playing 50% of the time on the Wii U pad. A life saver since I would be playing 50% less of this amazing game.

Yes. I wound up playing it this way for about two hours yesterday, while watching the Bombcast. I was looking for shrines. You can even just use the headphone jack to get all the audio you'll need. Some of the gyroscope puzzles will be unplayable, unfortunately, and there's no alternate control scheme.

Looks 1,000,000 times better than TV version on Wii U imo! I've been playing it this way with no problems, and so far as I can tell motion shit can be turned off.

Edit: wait so only SOME gyro stuff can be turned off? Haven't got there yet... will have to see what that's like.

You can turn off gyroscope aiming with the bow and arrow and stuff. But then there's this monstrosity that you'll almost definitely need a television for.

@justin258: Oh please. A friend played that with the Switch in handheld mode and had no problem. You definitely don't need a television for it. It's not that hard of a puzzle.

@justin258 Ahh ok, at first I thought people here just hadn't seen the options menu! I'm not going to follow that link for fear of being spoiled ( :D ) but at this point will just have to hope that either @retris is right or the truth is somewhere between you two.

@justin258: That one's not too bad.

Mini spoilers for that shrine and another similar one,

But so far the entire rest of the game seems perfectly playable in handheld mode. I've probably spent about equal time between the two modes. I prefer the pro controller, but if I just want to play a bit of Zelda right then and there I just use the gamepad.

Unfortunately, yes you can play this on the gamepad 100% of the time. This is because it isn't used for anything other than to remind you that BoTW shifted from a Wii U only game into a Switch game that also can run, poorly, on the Wii U.

The good news is that there aren't many of them. I've only found four so far, in thirty hours of play. They're just super clunky and annoying from the very second you start taking control of them.