Been playing this hack for about 3 hours now, man this is a brilliant hack, it feels totally fresh and very addictive, which is strange for me as I hated ruby and sapphire, they just came across as the most boring out of all 4 generations.
The island idea is brilliant, the boat trips now feel more epic rather than just a cruise around the same map, it just feels like there is 4 decent sized mini-regions to explore rather than 4 islands.
One criticism is that although I've only played this game for 3 hours, the long stretch (well, how I played it, it felt like a long stretch) to go fetch your rival for Birch made your initial pokemons level high enough to breeze you through the first and second gyms (what i've just beaten in my 3hours), so as like every fan of a game, I have a suggestion.
It'd be a silly idea to make the journey shorter, because it felt like exploration to me, and it felt good, but for the first island, lowering the wild Pokemon levels would be a good idea as it'd slow down the level development, or just raise the gym levels a bit.
Other than that little criticism, I am enjoying this hack alot :) keep up the good work!