^ Forest Temple in TP was my first ever dungeon. Let me tell you. It took me a crazy 4-5 hours to beat because I kept getting lost. Keep in mind I never played Zelda before. I never even knew what a dungeon was. And I had to pick the Zelda game with the hardest first dungeon. I guess by then Nintendo assumed the player knew how dungeons worked. Forest Temple wasn't anything super-impressive, but for a first dungeon in a game, it's relatively good.
I can see where you're coming from. By the time I played TP, I was already a Zelda veteran, so I was pretty unimpressed. But, if it were my first dungeon I probably would've liked it more.