Do Skylanders giants work with swap force or other skylanders games?

A question about : Do Skylanders giants work with swap force or other skylanders games?

I bought my son the Skylanders giants portal, game and figures for Christmas for xbox 360. He has about a dozen figures and today completed the game.

I would now like to get him another skylanders game. If I bought him just the swap force game would that work with the figures and portal he already has? Or do any of the other skylanders game work with what he has already?

I'm trying to google the answers myself but i'm not sure, it mentions different series which is confusing.

Does anyone have these games and figures and know anything about them.

Best answers:

• My son has them.
  They are backwards compatible but not forwards ifwsim.
  First out was spyro? (not sure we don't have this one) then giants then swapforce then trapforce.
  so the giants will work on the swapforce game, but the swapforce figures wont work in the giants game. By memory I think you will need to buy some swapforce characters to access some parts of the game.
  The same portal will work for giants and swapforce (trapforce needs a different one)
  HTH
• Thank you that is very helpful.
  If the portal is the same and the figures work i'll get him the swap force game too.
  Does that mean the figures from giants work on trap team if you buy the new portal or as its a new portal do you need new figures.
• yes the all the figures (giants and swapforce) will work with the trapteam portal but you will need a trapteam portal to play the trapteam game. The trapteam portal also works with the giants and swapforce game.
  Just be aware if you are going to buy the game (disc) only you will need to purchase some swapforce figures, I found it was cheaper to get everything bundled together although we didn't need the portal.
  You could try looking at CEX for figures as some on them are sold cheaply on there, my son likes buying these second hand ones as some of them already have the extra powers.
• Thank you that's really helped.
  I will look at CEX. I bought the giants starter pack from there but found figures cheaper in smyths toys superstore as they had an offer on.