How come Ninetales' and Sandshrews Alola forms are ice types?

Question

Honestly, Game Freak has done some weird things, such as Slowbro learning Flamethrower and Heatran being only one legendary Pokemon but still having the chance of being both male or female, but making ground and fire types Pokemon into ice types in Alola, a region based on Hawii, an environment which rarely snows is simply even more hard to explain than creating new ice type Pokemon for Alola. Any explanation?

Comments

You ask why. I say: why not?
In all seriousness, right now we can only speculate. To me, it just seems fitting in some weird way.
On a side note, I also don't see how Exeggutor's new forme is a Dragon Type...I love its design though.

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I believe the pokedex says a volcanic eruption made it get too hot for them so they ran into the snowy mountains

Answer 1

Sun and Moon seems to be branching off from the Pokémon fromula quite a bit (replacing Gyms with Trials, possibly eliminating HMs in favour of Poké Ride, etc.) and it appears that they are also adding alternate forms of Pokémon based on location. Do not forget, also, the illustrious and magical 35-foot-tall Alola Exeggutor, gaining the Dragon-typing from a mixture of its sauropod appearance and the Dracaena Draco. Making Vulpix and Sandshrew Ice and Ninetales and Sandslash Ice/Fairy and Ice/Steel, respectively, is just one of the new directions that Sun and Moon appears to be taking the Pokémon franchise.

Also, have a look at the southeastern island on this map of Alola:

As you can see, there is a high mountain covered in ice. While not confirmed, this is most likely the place where Icepix and Iceshrew will be found.

Hawaii does have snow. This is the peak of its highest mountain, the dormant volcano Mauna Kea.

Comments

I didn't realize that the Alola Exeggutor was 35 feet tall. Other than that, thanks.

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No problem :) That's 4 inches taller than Mega Rayquaza is long btw, making him the second tallest Pokémon.

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whoa! the alolan exeggutor is THAT tall!??

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lol ikr! It makes you wonder how they move around.

Answer 2

Ula' ula' is quite a snowy island of the Alola region. And Tapu village and Mount Lankia are the only places where you can catch Vulpix and Sandslash. It's always raining in Tapu village and always snowing on Mount Lankia, so Sandslash's skin adapts to the cold weather. The stone on it's spikes cracks and the now steel spikes freeze and develop a coating of ice. And for Vulpix, it's skin only has to adapt to the cold. But I do get your point. It is quite amazing how a fire type can change to a ice/fairy type and a ground type to a ice/steel type. But it's only made the game better.

Hope this helped