I just installed a fresh manjaro 32 bit on a friends old notebook (was running xp).
All he wants is to be able to run emulators of classic nintendo games and such.
However I can’t seem to be able to run the AUR on pacman without ~1300 updates that fail
and I can’t sync to any mirrors (all say ERRORS).
I am still new with manjaro, I use 2 laptops with 64 bit version and this 32 bit has a few differences. (currently using my laptop to write on forums)
Welcome to the forum! 
I’m afraid the x86-32 release of Manjaro is no longer supported. The 32-bit release was not an official Manjaro release ─ it was a community release, meaning that it was being put together and maintained by a single individual in his own time, and this person has unfortunately recently left the team.
To be fair it was discontinued a good while before that though.
32bit hasnt seen any movement in … oh jeez … almost a year?
(the last movement being removal from the mirrors)
I was not aware of that, thank you.
Do you have any other linux OS that you would recommend for a 32 bit system that could be used as a game emulator?
I think it was still being offered up and maintained until just before the (northern-hemisphere) summer of 2020, if my memory serves me well. 
Official ‘hiatus’ period announced last November
Official mirror removal in March (this year … the one that came after that nov ;-P)
This here is a fairly recent ─ i.e. from July ─ list of distributions that are still available in 32-bit.
In short:
Sadly Bodhi is discontinued as well (as a whole … including 64bit)
But thanks … we had compiled a list on the old forum and I couldnt find it.
thanks for all the help
With a little work you can convert a Manjaro32 installation to Archlinux32.
Read the notes at Convert Manjaro32 to Archlinux32 | NIX NOTES
Bunsenlabs provided a 32 bits edition also.
MX-Linux is also an option for 32 bit.