After connecting my HDMI cable to the television I was able to go through the beginning of the Paper Mario Color Splash story then finally switch to gamepad only mode. The Wii U game console should be able to detect if there is no HDMI signal to a television and default to Wii U gamepad gameplay. The television I own only has one HDMI out and is connected to my computer making this a huge hassle. As it turns out, the game was working perfectly only needing the player to watch and read the dialogue shown on the television screen, but since I have been playing my games only with the Wii U gamepad the past few weeks I didn't think to connect with my television. I just had the same problem thinking the game was frozen because on the gamepad nothing was displayed except a bland color of rectangles.
