What are your favorite pokemon romhacks?

Has Gaia updated yet?

PureRGB

emerald rogue 2.0.
nothing else even comes close, not even unbound. it's in a league of its own.

Pokemon girls hunter 1-3

unbound

Playing that one lately and it's fun but there's waaay too much story exposition. Just beat the gang city gym leader
Are there any other gen 3 hacks that implement phys/spe split and megas?

most gen 3 hacks made in the last few years have megas thanks to the decomps
unfortunately most of them are also difficultyhackslop

Gaia and it's not even close.
That's Gaia. A good normal adventure with Gen 6 mechanics. It's not a kaizo hack, it's not filled with dogshit gimmicks like Unbound, it's just a good game. Will also update sometime this year apparently.

I'm ok with a bit of extra difficulty since the original games tend to be piss easy

gaia doesn't have megas does it? i don't remember it having them