On Pokémon's 30th birthday, I'm pretty sure this is still the most luxurious collectible it's ever released

It's Pokémon Day, and this is a particularly big one – this year, Pokémon turns 30, which is the sort of anniversary that most brands and franchises dream of getting to. It's brought with a whole heap of new announcements, but you might have missed that in amongst the noise, today is also the on-sale date for the huge Lego Pokémon sets announced a couple of months ago.

They're some of the most extravagant Lego kits I've ever seen (and I'm someone who's lucky to have built ones like the Starship Enterprise, and The Lord of the Rings Rivendell in recent years. In particular, my mind's been completely captured by the largest set of the run: Venusaur, Charizard and Blastoise.

It's a staggering collectible, one that gives you really detailed and perfectly-modelled examples of the final evolutions of each starter Pokémon from the very first generation of games – the ones I remember so vividly from my childhood.

I'm from the generation that completely wrecked save files by abusing the MissingNo. glitch on Pokémon Blue (in my case), so these monsters are some of the longest-standing mascots in my life. To see them recreated like this is something else, albeit there's no world where I can afford to buy the kit myself.

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I'm particularly taken with the way the set divides – you can have it as a complete display, with each of the three monsters on a section defined by their main elemental power, but they're also free-standing models, from the looks of things.

That stonking price tag (£579.99 here in the UK) is hard to get past, and no mistake, but I'm extremely confident that by the time you read this story, they'll have already completely sold out – still, no harm in trying eh?

Lego Pokémon Venusaur, Charizard and Blastoise: £579.99 at LEGO

As I say, expect this one's stock to move VERY quickly, so if you click this link and see it available, you might want to check out sharpish!

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Of course, there are luckily some other sets to pick from, including charming versions of both Eevee and Pikachu, arguably more recognisable thanks to their starring roles in various eras of the cartoon show.

All in all, though, these sets really do look like some of the most luxurious and high-end merchandise I've ever seen created for a franchise like this. It's fairly telling that fans from the early Pokémon days are happy to hoover this stuff up – the franchise has gone from strength to strength.

Given the crazy demand for the trading card game's rarest cards at this point, don't be surprised if some people aim to buy up these sets just to sit on them for a decade or two, hoping to sell them for way more down the line. That's a bit of a bummer, to my mind, but at this price it's all a bit of a silly season anyway.