Ehhh, it's one line. Other characters like Raph or Volo, etc don't react. Every other time the Emp acts like you munched every tadpole you came across, including saying you were the 'same' as him for some reason, it doesn't open up any other dialog options, gives you more or different options later or anything at all. It is the definition of 'flavor dialog' and I don't know of anyone that considers flavor responses to be story choices.
And as far as the tadpole powers go, um, Fly? You also have videos like and as showcases. The game is easy enough to get by without the tadpole powers, but saying they don't provide an impactful benefit or it was 'debunked' is way too strong a word. It's a game balance issue. Not a tadpole power issue. They are clearly intended to provide meaningful benefits. If the game was harder, then it would make more of a difference. I can very easily see someone who struggles on Balanced to have a meaningful difference in play using tadpole powers now.
Ideally, Larian would have known what the intentions for tadpole powers were and integrated it more evenly in the game. If they weren't supposed to be that big of a deal, maybe don't have all the in game hints (or advertise shortly before release) that it's a big deal. This seems more of a 'managing expectations' problem more than anything else. However, as I doubt rewriting how much emphasis Act 1 puts on the danger is an option, the other method is to actually cash the check they wrote. IMO, being able to savescum all the main endings in the last hour or so of gameplay is a substantial flaw in the game. Having different ending choices for 'pure' vs 'corrupt' runs is the least that should happen.
Some kind of background approval counter for the Emp so that you can't just flip flop between Trust and Suspicion in order to make him flip flop between Ally and Sus would also help. Rejecting tadpoles despite his advice means he gets increasingly antagonistic throughout the game, instead of just forgetting you pissed him off last cutscene would be an actual story choice. TBH, each tier of tadpole power making you get increasingly uglier a la Dark Side in the KOTOR games is also an option instead of it just happening all at once at the very end.
And make people react to it!
It doesn't have to be super harsh, but there definitely needs to be something that isn't just shrugged off by everyone ever.
