New imports to hit North America in early '08

New entries in a pair of Japanese gaming franchises are headed for domestic shores. Koei's Samurai Warriors: Katana for the Wii and Hudson's Dungeon Explorer: Warriors of Ancient Arts for the Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable were confirmed today for North American releases early next year.

Katana is now set to arrive in stores on January 15, 2008, a full year after Koei originally confirmed that the game would see a domestic release. The arcade-style action game has players using the Wii Remote as a stand-in for a variety of weapons, including a sword, a spear, a warhammer, a gun, a cannon, and a bow and arrow.

Wii gamers may recognize the Dungeon Explorer franchise from the original TurboGrafx-16 game's release on the Virtual Console downloadable-game service. Hudson today announced that portable gamers will be able to get their hands on the handheld follow-ups in February. Although both editions of the game share a subtitle, they will feature separate gameplay elements and tell different stories, with the DS tale set hundreds of years after its PSP counterpart.