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Its considered a great game because it's a great game.  Period.
If you think people won't criticize a zelda game, just look at some of the reactions to Wind Waker, Twilight Princess or Skyward Sword.
I almost have the opposite opinion of it.  BotW was a really good game, but it was a terrible Zelda game.  So many of the elements of the Zelda series were missing or changed so much they were unrecognizable. >

I think a bit of both, but it’s your opinion. 
What made it great for you? >

I enjoyed the paraglider. And the flurry rush system. >

The paraglided was needed! Without it, I would have never completed the game. >

It was kinda designed around the paraglider so that’s kinda dumb to say >

Well of course, you climbed high and jumped towards your new destination. I just felt that with the stamina gauge it felt like forever transversing anywhere. I don’t get much of a kick from the climbing and going nearly everywhere. I need to be at least rewarded if I’m going to spend time doing that. >

It really feels like a bunch of neat gimmicks/tech they wanted to try out, but didn't have an IP for it so they tried to turn it into a Zelda entry. Now when I use Zelda as a comparison game to explain another game's style to someone, I have to clarify that I don't mean BoTW because it diverges so much.
people like to say its an explorer's game but I don't know anything thats actually worthwhile to find.
Its not like Skyrim where you accidentally stumble upon some dwarven city full of items/weapons that are unique to that one spot. Or like Far Cry where there's some giant enemy outpost you can raid for a thrill. >

Exactly! I explored more in Skyrim or even another barren game No Man’s Sky >

"Only"? I don't think so. >

Why though? >

BOTW broke away from the typical formula for Zelda games and employed a lot of subtlety and detail that attracted new people to the series and excited a lot of pre-existing fans. And that's no small feat. >

Maybe that’s why I didn’t enjoy it. It took all the things I liked and added things I don’t care for >

It's my favourite game in the series, but before its release my favourite was Majora's Mask so I think you'd agree that's not too surprising. But it's not for everyone and if you preferred one of the others that's A-okay. >

Yeah, I can see how that’s true haha. >

I think a lot of your critique is fair but looking at other big title Nintendo games for the wiiu/switch I think it was pretty revolutionary. Making an open world game with limited tech is challenging. I agree that I feel like there should have been more in the world to explore, I found that the less you look for the less you will find.
My fiancé refused to play this game for a long time even though I loved it. A big argument of his was that it seemed boring and empty and when he started the game it seemed that way. Then he stopped playing the game the way the game was pathed/intended and starting having way more fun. Finding ways to abuse powers, fighting shit that you are clearly supposed to just avoid at the beginning, solving puzzles in the most obnoxious way possible just to see if the game would let him. THAT is where the fun of BOTW is, because 9/10 times the game does let you solve puzzles in unorthodox ways and that is a lot of effort on the game developers end.
I do think the game could have benefitted from more variety and certainly from having more NPC's to interact with. The side quests aren't really that rewarding either most of the time.
That being said I don't think BOTW is popular only because it's a Zelda game, though that certainly helps, it was a game that was doing something Nintendo hadn't really done on a major title before. It was novel at the time and that pushed a lot of interest and sales. It was a departure from form and I think that sparked a lot of interest. >

Fair enough. Then maybe it should be called amazing for Nintendo, but not considered one of the greatest games around as it’s constantly citied >

Breath of the Wild is a pretty good representation of Nintendo development at the moment. Easy game to pick up but difficult to master, designed so that you can approach the game in whatever way you find fun, and the core design elements are about reinforcing a player's intrinsic motivation to play the game.
This is very different from how most other games are designed, and I would say you need to approach these games with a different mindset. If you try to grind through these games, and 100% everything, you will burn out and hate the game. If you focus on doing what you're enjoying at the moment, and play the game as you see fit, the game is a joy. >

I never 100% games. I play them just for fun and I found just enough to force myself through this game.
This was a grind for me. Nothing seemed to be fun long enough for me to get hooked. I liked some things, but it just didn’t have enough to make me want to play it. I just passed the main story as I hate at least not trying to do that. >

I agree with most of your criticism, but I poured alot of time into it and really enjoyed the game. The open world was great if you ignore that it was largely empty and devoid of things to do. It's certainly not on par with Skyrim but it inspired the same sense of wonderment Skyrim did for me. At that time, I was very much into the "I'm gonna go over there because why the fuck not?" explorer vibe.
I think if it was a fresh IP it probably wouldn't have done as well, the branding power of Zelda carries alot of weight. But I don't believe it's success is solely due to it being a LoZ game. 
I kind of put BotW in an "amazing game that I really enjoyed but will realistically never play again" category. >

Okay, maybe I’m being a bit harsh.
It’s not a bad game, but I feel that it doesn’t deserve the grey tag either. 
Even people here tried to say the open world part was revolutionary! I’m just glad you mentioned Skyrim as it was down before and had just as many different things as Zelda but with a bigger overarching story. >

I agree in the context the game felt "hollow". The world was big but felt empty where I was running over hills, mountains, etc and yeah I would see the random thing to get X but because there was nothing else there. A little more scenery would have been preferred. Hell a small leveling or damage buff system would have been sweet as well >

That’s what I thought as well. Give me something to worry about, or something to get interested in. I really don’t understand how people just explored and thought this is fun, when it had basically been down with other games as well. >

No. Sorry. Open world was revolutionary shit no matter how meek it was. Case closed >

Saying "case closed" doesn't make you right. Case closed. >

Fine, Case sealed. >

Immortals Fenyx Rising better >

Never tried it to be fair >

I think I just adored the story there was and how interactive I could be with the environment. Also I could point Link in a random direction and go somewhere cool or fun to traverse.
I don’t remember anything else about the game hahah >

Ah man the story was so minimal that I forgot it was there. And it was nice not to have barriers to stop you going somewhere, but there was never really anything to find when you got there >

Not true. Did not like ocarina of time but loved botw. >

From what I’ve heard and played, this game took out a lot of the old Zelda stuff and added more exploration. Seems that appeals to other fans and less so to some older Zelda fans maybe. 
Oh well if others like it, it will be similar int he next one. I just hope they add more story and things to do other than running around >

I will be waiting for botw 2 >

So will I haha. I just want more before I buy it >

...No. I can name a few Zelda games that were God awful. Phantom Hour Glass comes to mind... >

Didn’t that score 9’s in places like ign and gamespot?
I never said there weren’t any bad games. Skyward sword wasn’t a great game either and it scored well. >

Did they even play it? It makes you go back to the same dungeon over and over. Because I did and by the time I reached the end and found out the final boss was in there too I decided to just not beat it. >

I didn’t, but I did a quick google and see that it did indeed score quite highly. Even google comments score it 4.5. >

No, it was only considered great because it's an "open world survival" sellout, like practically every other game ever made in the last 5 or so years. >

See maybe that’s why I wasn’t in to it. Never really got the survival game thing. I play for story and not the MMO style grind of materials and items. Zelda had some story but it had too much of the same but in different shades for me. >

Same. I'm so tired of the trend of corporatized sellouts. "Open world & survival genres are so hot right now! Let's milk the hell out of them and beat the dead horse for maximum profit!" It's not even a good Zelda game at all. The only thing that makes it Zelda is the characters/lore. Zelda is supposed to be about casual adventuring and dungeons & shit. Not weapons that break in 2 swings and cooking food, etc. ugh >

Upvoted, but the game still has some big flaws. Weapon breaking I honestly thought was fine, but the "mini-dungeons" were just dissapointing, and overall it seemed like the game was lacking significant challenge and content within its locations.   
The game's still good because of the exploration though. Just exploring around is still really fun, especially on the first playthrough, and it's arguably the main focus of the game. >

See I did a bit of exploration at the start, but after a few hours I was done. I just searched for the divine beasts. Would do any temple I came across and then move on. Never really saw the appeal to search somewhere else as I knew I would probably get rubies or a weapon I can break >

I completely agree, and have expressed very similar opinions to my friends. They were just as shocked as if I had just slapped all their grandmothers. They make fun of me about it now haha. 
If I could shortly sum up my opinion, I would say that it’s purposefully frustrating. Frustration as a game mechanic. >

See I was a bit frustrated by the stamina bar and rain when climbing. As I didn’t really enjoy having to plan a climb to go to the dungeon/shrine I saw. In the end, I hit the easy ones and left others untouched. 
The weapons breaking was fine, but they needed to have a way to make them unique that I wanted to use them. I just ended up running past most enemies as they weren’t really worth my time or weapons/armour usage. >

BotW is overrated.
Like you, I played it for the first time recently. It’s fine as a game: the exploration is cool, the ways you can maneuver around the map are nice, the variety of terrain is great but the world is so extremely empty. There is too much side content and not enough meat. You can spend months hunting korok seeds and armor…but for what? The game is long over before you find all that stuff and none of it makes the game easier after a point.
I remember being especially confused why there’s a huge jungle in the corner of the map that you don’t do anything in. There’s huge swathes of the map that are completely irrelevant, compare that to something like GTA where every inch of the map gets used in a mission at some point.
I’m sure it was better when it was new, there’s some novel stuff in the game, but coming at it years after it releases knocks some of the “wow” off of it.
I will say the last dungeon (the castle) is one of the coolest things I’ve played in a while. The number of ways you can get through it was really well thought out. >

See I’m not sure if it’s a years after thing for me. As I can still pick up older GTA games or even Skyrim and play them. I just didn’t feel the need to explore, though as you say it was fun for a while but in the end it wasn’t rewarding.