Skylanders Portal Compatibility: Unlock Every Adventure with the Ultimate Guide!

It can be difficult to keep track of what games your Skylanders figures and portals will work with. This guide provides a comprehensive overview of Skylanders portal compatibility, helping you determine which games your figures and portals will work with across the Skylanders franchise.

Understanding Skylanders Portals of Power

To bring the toys into the game of Skylanders, you'll need the Portal of Power. A Portal of Power can also be used as a viewer, giving Portal Masters the ability to seek out locations and characters of interest -- allowing the Skylanders to know exactly where to go. In Skylands, the Portal of Power serves as a transport pedestal to take the Skylanders to other areas or distances through the power of a Portal Master. Many Skylanders refer to the action of being placed on the Portal of Power as "Booming" or "portalling".

During the events of SuperChargers, Kaos used The Sky Eater to cut off the portal connection between Skylands and other worlds, including Earth, rendering the Portals useless. The Skylanders were able to bypass this disadvantage by using the Rift Engines within the SuperCharger vehicles to create rifts to transport them around Skylands and other worlds.

Identifying Your Portal

Determine which Skylanders game(s) and Portal(s) of Power you have. There are six main games in the Skylanders franchise. Turn your Portal of Power over, and look at the stickers on the bottom to see which console it is for. Portals may go by slightly different names, and some will specifically list a console that the portal was designed for.

If you are unable to determine compatibility of a figure or portal even with the information provided in this guide, you can in fact test portals and figures individually by just trying them out with your console and your game.

Types of Portals

Original Portal (Spyro's Adventure/Giants): This portal looks similar to the top of a stone castle, with a thick lip on the outer edge. The portal is slightly different between the two games, with the Spyro's Adventure iteration having a green ring at the bottom and the Giants iteration having a gray ring. The original portal from Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure and Skylanders: Giants was originally limited to read up to four pieces at max.
SWAP Force Portal: The console SWAP Force Portal of Power has the symbol of each element. With the Introduction of the SWAP Force Skylanders, which are considered as two individual pieces, a new and updated Portal of Power was introduced, which allows for more room for the toys as well as being able to read more pieces than previously, such as when using two SWAP Force figures and a Magic Item all at the same time.
Traptanium Portal (Trap Team): In Skylanders: Trap Team, a new portal dubbed the Traptanium Portal was created to include the Portal Villain Vault and a Trap slot for capturing Villains as well as use them in battle. The portal also has a built-in speaker where captured villains can talk through.
SuperChargers Portal: A newer, larger portal with a large silver Rift Engine was made for Skylanders: SuperChargers; it features additional space for both Vehicles and Skylanders.
Imaginators Portal: In certain regions, a modified version of the SuperChargers portal is included in Skylanders: Imaginators, while other regions got the older Swap Force portal with a gray cord instead of a black cord.
Battlecast Portals: In Skylanders: Battlecast, the portals are rectangular and used for combat instead of transportation.

Note! The older portals from Spyro's Adventure/Giants portals are interchangeable, and will also work with SuperChargers and Imaginators.

SWAP Force Skylanders as well as their swapped combinations can be used with the original portals from Spyro's Adventure and Giants, this however only works in SuperChargers and Imaginators. In SuperChargers, two players can each play SWAP Force Skylanders simultaneously, but only as long as there are no physical vehicles being used. Instead, a digital vehicle is required, such as Instant Hot Streak.

In Swap Force, the newer portals are still a necessity as these were updated to being able to read more figures at once.

Console Compatibility

Most portals are interchangeable between consoles, except for Microsoft's Xbox consoles. The Xbox 360 portals of power can only be used on an Xbox 360 console. Xbox One portals of power are likewise only compatible with Xbox One consoles.

Handheld versions of the Skylanders games have their own specific wireless portals of power that are smaller in size, and are not compatible with the console versions of the games. The 3DS Swap Force portal lacks a USB port and thus can't be used with console games.

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The older 3DS and Bluetooth portals have an mini USB port, which was most likely meant to be used mainly with the now shut down web browser game, Skylanders: Universe. After the shut down, any subsequent Skylanders games with newer wireless portals no longer has a USB port on them.

Portal Power

It uses 4 AA batteries for power, and requires a special USB attachment to be plugged into the console in order for it to function wirelessly.

According to Glumshanks in Skylanders: Giants, Portal Masters should not use the Portal of Power on themselves, as it will cause them extreme pain when transporting between realms, and electrical discharges that go on for some time.

In some stores, larger versions of the Portal of Power can be seen.

Note! *The Spyro's Adventure/Giants portal has a limit of up to 4 pieces that can be read simultaneously. For example; two players can each play a Swap Force figure in Superchargers when using the older portals, but because a Swap Force Skylander count as two pieces, that means the players won't be able to use a physical vehicle as a result.

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**The 3DS portal may have trouble reading multiple figures simultaneously when played on the console games, particularly Swap Force characters, which technically consists of 2 pieces.

The Confusing Complexity of Skylanders Portals

Skylanders Figures: Compatibility and Identification

Understand that all figures from older games work in newer games. There are only a few caveats to this rule of thumb. It particularly applies to Magic Item and Expansion / Adventure Pack figures from earlier games.

Understand that unlike portals, Skylanders figures are not console-specific. The only exception here are the Traptanium Traps, which do not have bases of any sort.

Exceptions to Figure Compatibility

Traptanium Traps: When you use them in Trap Team, they can capture specific villain characters and allow you to play as them in the game. While Superchargers and Imaginators are compatible with older portals, the lack of Trap slot on some will prevent usage of traps. ↑ Trap Team's Magic Moment. (Date Posted: Dec.
SuperChargers Vehicles: Not counting vehicle figures, the only other figures that were made for SuperChargers that do not have engine platforms they are standing on are the 4 trophy figures that unlock extra race tracks. SuperChargers was the first to break this rule, with its figures only being compatible with SuperChargers (and the later game Imaginators) despite having figures of some of the same characters from earlier games.
Imaginators Figures: Imaginators features only all-new character figures, with no figures of returning playable characters at all. Can I use Skylanders Imaginators figures with a trap team? No, sadly. Skylanders Imaginators figures only work in Imaginators.

Identifying Skylanders Figures

Out of all of the Skylanders figures, vehicles from SuperChargers are perhaps the most easily mistaken for regular toys. The shape of the platform may be easiest to discern by looking at the figure from underneath. Searching for the Activision logo etched into the underside of a figure is the most reliable way of confirming that you are looking at a Skylanders figure when in doubt, and applies to every figure in the franchise, not strictly SuperChargers vehicles.

If you're having trouble identifying a particular Skylanders figure, it might be helpful to compare your figure with pictures of complete sets of figures for each game. If you have access to the foldout poster that originally came with each Skylanders game, you can see many (but not all) of the figures that were released for that particular game on it.

Eon's Elite Figures

There are 14 total Eon's Elites figures that were made. The figures often have a metallic look, or a sparkling glitter-like aesthetic added to some portion of them. Unlike most figures that start out at Level 1 and offer a level progression system in the game, Eon's Elite figures are at maximum level from the start, even if you reset them.

Creation Crystals

Creation Crystals are mostly cylindrical in shape, with a clear plastic tube that houses a colored plastic gem in the center, which lights up when placed onto the portal.

Checking Original Packaging

Check the original packaging that a Skylanders figure came in when you purchased one new, if you have access to packaging for one at this point. You may notice a few mentions on the box, of Skylanders games that the figure is or is not compatible with.

For example, say you have Tidal Wave Gill Grunt, a Trap Team figure designated on the packaging and in the game as "Series 4", and you want to know if it will work with any earlier Skylanders games. All you need to do is determine the earliest game in the Skylanders franchise that had a Gill Grunt figure in it, which will be his "Series 1" debut figure. All that the "Series #" designation means, is that the character has had its own figure released in that number of games up until that point.

For example, the character Shroomboom had his "Series 1" debut figure in the second Skylanders game, Skylanders Giants. However, he did not have a figure in the third game, Swap Force, at all. Instead, his "Series 2" figure came in the fourth game, Trap Team, as Sure Shot Shroomboom.

Saving Game Progress

For Skylanders games you could say there are two locations. Your game progress is saved on the console you are playing on. So things like your progression through the game's levels or story, any achievements you have completed, and access to any in-game content you've unlocked, are all stored in your console's save file. However, individual Skylander figure progression is stored on the figure itself, using its built-in NFC chip. This allows you to transfer it between games and keep its progress intact.

Troubleshooting

Sharpie on the base of a figure

When I was little, I had a bunch of figures, but no portal or game (I just wanted to collect them) and I colored the bottom the base with a sharpie. Will they be able to be used still? Coloring them with a Sharpie pen won't hurt their functionality on the game portal, so they should still work with the games just fine. As for cleaning off Sharpie, try using a dry erase marker, repeatedly marking over the sharpie area, and wiping off with a towel or similar cloth. However, after a few times of trying this method, it will wreck the dry erase marker, so be ready for that.

tags: #skylanders #portal #compatibility