Confused about Skylanders

[FaceDirectionOfTravel]

Hi - my son got some Skylanders and a base thingy from a friend for the Wii. It is Spyros Advernture.

He loves it and I want to get him some more characters to go with it for Christmas, but I can't tell what characters will go with this game. Would I be better off just buying him a Swap Force starter pack? Or what?

Spyro's Adventures is the first game so only the first Skylanders work with it, on the figure packets is a chart which shows you which games they work with.
I think that all the older skylanders work with the newer games but not the other way round.
Not sure if you would be better off with swap force, we have giants and I refuse to spend hundreds more on game and figures for what is essentially the same thing.

Thanks - we got it free from a generous friend whose son had stopped playing with it, so I've not seen any packaging!

But I could look on the packages of new figures, yes.

And since we haven't spent any pounds on Skylanders yet, I'm alright about spending some £££ on getting a new set if necessary. I think the figures are about £10 each anyway, so if for £40 I can get a whole new starter pack set that he'd be delighted with, I might go with that.

We got the original and then giants.

The original is great, it's a game that survives many play throughs and to be honest DH and I enjoyed playing it with DS. The Skylanders that work with the first game are fairly easy to get second hand.

The giants thing is good and we can use older skylanders with it but DS plays the old one just as much. DS was excited to have the newer pack but still saves for Skylanders for the old version, there are rare models and he wanted certain types to unlock stuff on the game (levels where you need a dark one etc)

It's one of those toys where you can spend a fortune on new packs, or just change it up with the odd model with new powers.

I can't comment on swap force, by I wouldn't buy giants again, I'd have spent the money on more models for the original.

I believe only the new 'Swap Force' games require a new portal - I think you can use the same old portal with the original 'Spyro's Adventure' game AND the 'Skylanders Giants' game. If he already has the first game, then only the oldest figures will work with it, as randomquicknamechange said, and they should say on the packets what they work with. But if you were to buy the Skylanders Giants game, both the old figures and the Giants-specific ones would work. You'd just need the game - no new portal.

If you wanted to go the whole hog though, Skylanders Swap Force and a new portal would mean he can use every skylander figure going, old and new.

What they ^ said!

You can get the newest game & portal from toys r us for around £30 - look for the £5 off voucher.

We get more figures from eBay - I pay around £4 each.

To be able to play all the game you only need one character from each element (9 or 10 of them).

Okay - thanks everyone. We have ordered him one (rare?) Spryros adventure character and the new Swap Force game with three characters. Thanks so much.

In my local Sainsburys they have a chart with which figures work on which portal.